Don Pendleton - Whipsaw

Bolan raised his sights for another slice, this time just over the hood, and the windshield went in a shower of glass slivers. He saw the machinegunner reach for his throat as he tumbled back over the tail and disappeared. The jeep started to weave, and Bolan realised he hadn't seen a driver.

A big front tire narrowly missed him as he dove to one side. Turning as the jeep rushed by, he caught a glimpse of the driver, crouched down behind the wheel, steering by feel and memory. The face looked oddly familiar, but it was in profile and half-hidden by steam.

The driver straightened up for a moment, wrestling with the wheel. The jeep stewed to the left, narrowly avoiding the fence. Bolan whipped his rifle in a tight arc. It burped a half-dozen rounds before the magazine ran out. The left rear tire blew, and the jeep zigzagged as the driver desperately fought the drag.

Getting to his knees, Bolan rammed a new clip home as the driver leapt from the jeep, letting it career on its own.

Bolan brought his own weapon to bear and squeezed. A single shot cracked from the M-16, then the rifle went suddenly dumb in his hands. It had jammed. He reached for the release, but the charging driver opened up. The big guy hit the deck, rolling toward the fence as he struggled to yank the AutoMag free of its holster.

The big .44-caliber automatic was slippery in his sweatdrenched hands, but he managed a single shot, forcing his opponent to dive. The unchauffeured jeep slammed into the fence, its momentum carrying it partway up the wire before it tipped over on its side, tires spinning uselessly.

Somewhere behind him, Bolan heard two sharp bursts of fire. They sang past his ear and slammed into the jeep. The fuel tank ruptured, and Bolan pressed himself flat as he saw the first spark hit a stream of gasoline. It caught and licked back up until the tank blew with a thunderous roar.

The driver lost his balance and his weapon at the same time, and Bolan charged, hitting him dead center with a vicious cross-body block. The man fell backward, and Bolan pinned him to the ground, planting a knee on each of his arms.

A slug from somewhere in the dark caught him high on the shoulder, knocking him to the ground as the driver twisted free. Scrambling around on all fours, he was looking for his rifle.

Running feet thudded heavily on the ground, and Bolan turned toward the sound. Four of them, all armed with automatic rifles, charged across the compound in a tight knot.

Bolan's fist closed over the AutoMag as a light speared out of the night from beyond the fence. With a sudden roar, a jeep thundered toward the compound gate.

It hit dead center and kept on coming. The four charging meres froze in their tracks. They watched the assault of the jeep as if paralyzed.

The dual gates bulged in the middle as the driver floored it. In slow motion, the fence seemd to crumple as the gates reached their limit. The double chain snapped with a sound like pistol shots, and the roaring jeep tossed the double gates aside.

The meres, as if controlled by a single brain, swung their rifles around to ace the new challenge.

Call seemed to happen in slow motion, and the tableau seemed frozen for a moment. Bolan could see it ad clearly etched against the wall of orange light chewing at the ruined camp.

Backlit by the holocaust, the meres had been reduced to black silhouettes. The only one moving was the driver of the jeep. As Carlos jumped down, rifle in hand, time cracked open again, and things moved furiously, as if to make up for lost time and get the universe back on track.

The meres moved as Carlos leapt. The other driver, also released from his paralysis, scooped his rifle off the ground. Carlos opened up, sweeping a viscious figure 8 through the knot of meres.

They scattered, but Bolan couldn't tell whether they'd been hit or chosen to dive out of the line of fire.

Charging ahead, his wounded arm flapping uselessly at his side, Bolan barreled into the other driver, knocking him backward again and sending his rifle cartwheeling away. Bolan lost his grip on the AutoMag, and the driver landed a sharp jab on the gunshot wound. A flash of bright light momentarily blinded Bolan as the arm went numb and he dropped to his knees.

The driver regained his footing and charged, knocking Bolan onto his back and pinning him.

Bolan reached out with his one good arm, but the driver slapped it aside and locked his fingers around Bolan's throat. The flames climbed higher, and the driver turned. For the first time, Bolan recognised Don McRae.

He pushed with all his weight, closing off Bolan's air. The light began to fade, and Bolan felt tired. He realized he was on the verge of blacking out, but all the strength seemed to have been drained from his body. He was aware of the pressure on his throat and of McRae's grinning face. His fingers clawed at the man's hands, but he was ineffective.

Over and over, McRae's lips moved, but Bolan heard nothing but a ringing in his ears. Then he realized that McRae was shouting, "Die, you bastard!" With every shout, he slammed his weight forward a little harder.

Galvanized by the demanding need to do something, Bolan groped for the Beretta. His fingers closed over a handle, and he pulled it free. It felt unfamiliar, and hazily Bolan realised it wasn't the Beretta as he brought it up and shoved with his last ounce of energy. It slipped between bones all the way to the hilt, and McRae twitched. His hands seemed to be the first to realize he'd been hurt, and they relaxed their grip. His arms were still rigid for a moment, then they, too, went slack, and Bolan choked down lungfuls of air.

McRae fell to his side with a great moaning sigh. Bolan tried to pull himself free, but he didn't have the strength. Vaguely aware of McRae's weight still pressing down on him, he watched from a great distance as the world began to spin. The orange light danced on the handle of the knife, the flames glittering on the pure-white ivory inlay.

Bolan thought it somehow fitting that McRae should be gravely wounded with his own knife, the same knife he'd used to torture the captives and to kill Thomas Colgan.

Then the world turned into a dark swirl, and he felt hands tugging at him just before he blacked out.

Bolan eased out of the car and let the door close softly behind him. The alley was pitch-black, and the air was thick with humidity and rich Chinese spices. Ongpin at night was like a piece of China moved two thousand miles and grafted on to a tropical island. As they had every place they'd settled, the Chinese had chosen to isolate themselves, keeping their culture intact, along with its wariness of foreigners.

Ongpin reflected that isolation, but unlike the last time Bolan had visited, the quarter seemed alive. Noise drifted through the open windows and the bright cracks under every door. As he moved down the alley, Bolan heard the melancholy wail of a biwa, its plaintive tune sounding surprisingly like the blues.

Mingling with the music, a different kind of sound drifted into the alley voices in urgent conversation.

Bolan glided cautiously, keeping to the wall.

He had three more blocks to go, slipping along back fences silently, his ears alert for every jarring note. Somewhere ahead, in a nondescript building, Charles Harding and Juan Rizal Cordero polished their plans to unleash a terror on Manila the likes of which it had never known.

Looking back on it, trying to piece it all together, Bolan realized that he had been a blind man in the desert. Walt Wilson had known more than he'd revealed, but not much. Frank Henson, his hooks only barely into Colgan, had a lead, but that must have been Harding's doing. It had been a way to keep tabs on Bolan. And with McRae on the scene, it was as good as having a beeper on him.